We’re another year older.

Whether we count the days ahead or look behind and add up those that have passed, we’ve all marked the passage of time.

This year we are three for three; three years in a row without a hurricane forcing us off the coast, out of the county or into another state.

We can only hope that this trend will continue in 2009.

In this column we’ll look back at some of 2008’s articles and see if what we’ve talked about has changed.

The recreational and commercial fishing problems that we talked about didn’t improve in 2008. They have gotten worse.

The regulations were tightened even more for several species by the regulating agencies. Continuing angling pressure from both the recreational and commercial sectors — not likely to slack off in 2009 — will probably offer us more of the same.

In the near future these fishery sectors will not only continue to be impacted by over-fishing and imports but the changing climate will have effects that even the wisest cannot yet fully see. With much of the marshland predicted to be lost to a rising sea level all sectors would be negatively impacted.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs seem to have really caught on in a big way. With their lower energy requirements and a much longer life, they’re helping to lower carbon emissions and save us money.

Companies that sell C.F.L.’s are now even starting to recycle them to help avoid releasing their mercury into the environment. Baldwin County E.M.C. has a drop-off box for your burned out C.F.L’s.

In the series of articles called “New ways of doing old things” we saw our future dependent on climate change.

Where we live, water use, repairing not buying and career choices were shown to be of primary concern for residents of the southeast.

Individual species were discussed including sharks, ugly fish, oysters, red drum, dolphin fish, billfish, crabs and flounders.

In the New Year I’ll be working on some new story series and looking more into the effect of climate change on how we live and fish.

I hope you’ve found last year’s articles interesting and informative. Maybe, some of them can be put to good use in your lives. The Earth will thank you.

Think Global - Act Local!

Dr. “Skip” Lazauski can be seen on the television show “Eco-Bites”, which airs on Mediacom’s channel 14 and Smartel’s channel 4. To reach Dr. Lazauski for questions and comments, send e-mail to IchiOrca@yahoo.com. For more information, see his Web site, drskiponline.com.